Author: LizG

Matthew 1:18-25 MSG The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they enjoyed their wedding night, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.

^20-23 While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream: “Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—‘God saves’—because he will save his people from their sins.” This would bring the prophet’s embryonic revelation to full term:

Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;
They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”).

^24-25 Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God’s angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus.

Observation

Both Mary and Joseph faced difficult decisions in accepting God’s mission to birth Messiah.  Mary considered the consequences of saying, “Yes.”  How would her family react?  None of them had seen or heard the angel.  Would Joseph refuse to marry her and make a public announcement of the dissolution of the betrothal?  Would she be ostracized, a social outcast, in her community?  Would she have to raise her son alone?  Would he be branded as a bastard and have the stigma follow him all his life?   

What would Joseph do?  He knew he was not the father of this baby, so he would assume she had committed adultery with someone else.  If he did not annul his contract with Mary, everyone would assume he was the one who had committed adultery with her.  He must have cared for her and her family to want to “take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.”  After the angel appeared in the dream, he decided to bear whatever shame would come and follow the pathway God had destined for them both.

And why would Father God choose to have Messiah born carrying such a social burden?  Could it have been to make it easier for sinners to relate to Jesus?

Impact on Me

How many times have I read the Christmas story without considering the sacrifice made by Mary, Joseph and Jesus?  They chose to submit to God regardless of the circumstances, to bear the burden of the consequences of their choices because it served God’s will and purpose, to suffer shame and rejection of their society in order to meet God’s needs rather than their own.  Thank goodness Mary and Joseph were wise and courageous enough to accept whatever consequences came with being the human parents of the Messiah, the promised one who would “save his people from their sins.” 

So, am I that wise and courageous?  Would I make choices that I knew would bring shame, rejection and disgrace on me or my family?  Would I allow everyone to misunderstand the situation for the sake of fulfilling God’s will and purpose?  I can look back on my life and see times where I said, “Yes!” and other times where I failed to do so.  The good news is that that baby Jesus, the Messiah, walked out His “Yes” from manger to the Cross so that I can receive grace for the times I failed.  This Jesus Who chose to lose His reputation with His society so that I could find peace and life in heavenly society. 

Prayer

Lord God, Father, All-Wise God, I don’t understand the pathways of faith You chose for Messiah, His earthly parents, His disciples, and all of us who follow Him now.  I do know that my “Yes” does not always lead me in easy and comfortable pathways.  More often than not, my “Yes” leads me into times of internal and external struggle, frustration and even suffering.   BUT, I trust You knowing that, if I accept, You will make the result worth the cost I pay. I believe that I never go alone when I choose to continue on the pathway of Your “Yes” regardless of the cost to me.  Give me courage to continue in Your “Yes” even when it challenges or terrifies me.  You are faithful to stay with me through it all.  In Jesus’ name, I pray.  Make it so.

Matthew 20:1-16 Phillips ^1-7 “For the kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer going out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. He agreed with them on a wage of a silver coin a day and sent them to work. About nine o’clock he went and saw some others standing about in the marketplace with nothing to do. ‘You go to the vineyard too,” he said to them, ‘and I will pay you a fair wage.’ And off they went. At about mid-day and again at about three o’clock in the afternoon he went and did the same thing. Then about five o’clock he went out and found some others standing about. ‘Why are you standing about here all day doing nothing?’ he asked them. ‘Because no one has employed us,’ they replied. ‘You go off into the vineyard as well, then,’ he said.

^8-12 “When evening came the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the labourers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ So those who were engaged at five o’clock came up and each man received a silver coin. But when the first to be employed came they reckoned they would get more, but they also received a silver coin a man. As they took their money they grumbled at the farmer and said, ‘These last fellows have only put in one hour’s work and you’ve treated them exactly the same as us who have gone through all the hard work and heat of the day!’

^13-15 “But he replied to one of them, ‘My friend, I’m not being unjust to you. Wasn’t our agreement for a silver coin a day? Take your money and go home. It is my wish to give the latecomers as much as I give you. May I not do what I like with what belongs to me? Must you be jealous because I am generous?’  ¹⁶ “So, many who are the last now will be the first then and the first last.”

Luke 23:39-43 MSG  ³⁹ One of the criminals hanging alongside cursed him: “Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!”

^40-41 But the other one made him shut up: “Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him—he did nothing to deserve this.”

⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.”

⁴³ He said, “Don’t worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.”

Observation

“So, many who are the last now will be the first then and the first last.”  This is a difficult concept for those of us raised in a competitive and performance-based culture.   Our culture teaches that the best at something deserve greater rewards and praise and the hardworking and diligent should earn more than those who labor less.   However, the two passages above say this is not necessarily God’s viewpoint.  Men who worked only an hour received the same pay as those who worked all day.  A criminal receiving his rightly deserved punishment reaches out in his last moments to Jesus and all is forgiven.   How is this fair?  It is not, but do we really want God to be strictly fair and give us what we deserve?

Both of these stories are about the nature of grace and the generosity of God Who freely dispenses that undeserved favor, stretching out His hand to rescue, and, when we sincerely repent, washing away sin through the sacrifice of Himself for us – regardless of our past, our sins, the hidden motives of our hearts, the length of our service.  Whether any of us wholly and faithfully submit to and serve the Lord for seventy years or 7 minutes, the one silver coin we are given for our repentance – and not anything else – is eternity with Him in Heaven.   What more could we want? 

Impact On Me

It is so easy when we serve the Lord for many years to drift into self-righteousness as in the stories of the indignant workers above, the older son in the Prodigal Son, the Pharisee and the Publican of Luke 18, and so many others.  Do I ever want to accuse God of being too generous with another after He has been so generous with me?  Our performance-based culture says our length and quality of service should be taken into account when rewards are handed out. 

If I am serving God, isn’t He the judge of what I receive for that service?  After all, it is only the generosity of God that allows any of us into His presence in the highest Heaven.  If God chooses to give all who repent and embrace salvation the same wages, isn’t Heaven His to give?  I will leave in His hands the determination of what I or anyone else receives on our investment in His service.

Ephesians 2:4-10 MSG  It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

^7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Prayer

Father of Grace and Mercy, Messiah, the only just Judge, Heaven is enough for me.  I leave any reward for my service in Your hands. Let everything I do in Your name be the outflow of the love and grace I have received.  Give me Your eyes to see past behavior, forgetting the past, to the anguished soul so I, too, can rejoice when they embrace salvation. Seek and destroy those places in me where pride or cultural expectations may rise up to challenge the pure motives of my heart, the desires You have seeded in me to please You.  May I never look down on another and forget that You, Lord, are the only faithful and just judge, the only Savior, and that Heaven is enough whether I labor seventy years or 7 minutes.  In Jesus’ name, I pray.

2 Corinthians 1:3-11 (Phillips) Thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is our Father and the source of all mercy and comfort. For He gives us comfort in our trials so that we in turn may be able to give the same sort of strong sympathy to others in theirs. Indeed, experience shows that the more we share Christ’s suffering the more we are able to give of His encouragement. This means that if we experience trouble, we can pass on to you comfort and spiritual help; for if we ourselves have been comforted we know how to encourage you to endure patiently the same sort of troubles that we have ourselves endured. We are quite confident that if you have to suffer troubles as we have done, then, like us, you will find the comfort and encouragement of God.

^8-11 We should like you, our brothers, to know something of what we went through in Asia. At that time, we were completely overwhelmed, the burden was more than we could bear, in fact we told ourselves that this was the end. Yet we believe now that we had this experience of coming to the end of our tether that we might learn to trust, not in ourselves, but in God who can raise the dead. It was God who preserved us from imminent death, and it is he who still preserves us. Further, we trust him to keep us safe in the future, and here you can join in and help by praying for us, so that the good that is done to us in answer to many prayers will mean eventually that many will thank God for our preservation.

Observation

Paul certainly was qualified to talk about troubles.  He had many as he traveled among the unsaved to share the Gospel.  In spite of all that he experienced, he saw troubles and trials not as barriers to what God wanted done but rather as opportunities to trust in God and grow in faith – “At that time we were completely overwhelmed, the burden was more than we could bear, in fact we told ourselves that this was the end.  Yet we believe now that we had this experience of coming to the end of our tether that we might learn to trust, not in ourselves, but in God who can raise the dead.”  

Paul tells us that it is in our difficult and trying times that we will find Jesus more present to bring comfort.  He even says trouble is the pathway to equipping us to bring that same comfort and encouragement to others in their desperate times.  “For He gives us comfort in our trials so that we in turn may be able to give the same sort of strong sympathy to others in theirs.”  So, rather than crying out to God for rescue as we feel like we are hanging on to the end of our ropes, Paul tells us to cry out to God to teach us – in that moment, that place, that experience – how to trust even more in Him so we can become His instrument of comfort, encouragement and grace to others who are also finding themselves at the end of their ropes.  

Impact on Me

Paul is asking me to change my perspective about the journey from the beginning to the end of my rope.  Normally, there is panic, hopelessness, fear as I get closer to the end of the rope.  Of course, I have been praying as I was sliding all the way down the rope.  However, as I get nearer to the end, I tend to cry out things like, “God, are you listening?  Have you forgotten my address?  Don’t You see what’s going on here?”  Generally, the closer to the end of the rope, the more the focus is on my predicament, God’s seemingly poor timing and what I can do to keep from falling off.  Am I alone in this?

Paul is asking me to keep my focus on God in my desperate times because He never stops listening or seeing me.  He always knows exactly where I am in the journey along the rope.  If I will look to and for Him as I slide down that rope, I will not only find Him faithful and right on time, but also learn how to comfort and encourage others who find themselves in the same predicament.  While the journey down my rope might have different causes than someone else’s, comfort and encouragement from the Holy Spirit will perfectly fit moment of every trip down the rope.

Prayer

Father God, You always have my best at heart. You are more interested in my character than my comfort, teaching me to walk by faith rather than live by superficial duty and tradition, taking me on the life journeys that will allow me to experience Your presence and peace rather than the easy ways I would choose. Help me to look for You and to You in every difficulty so the trouble does not become bigger than Your working within me through it. Change my perspective so I never lose Your light in my darkest circumstances and will be able to bring Your comfort and care to others who feel they are approaching the end of their ropes. Make it so, in Jesus’ name.

Romans 12 :1-3 NKJV I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. ² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. ³ For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. 

Romans 12:1-3 MSG So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. ³ I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

Observation

The great commandment can be summed up by “Love God with all you have and are and love others in the same way and with the same passion as you want to be loved.”  The commandment says nothing about me being loved, but that is the point.  In God’s call to become selfless is His promise to care and provide for us – “God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering…. fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out…. God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”  All of this is what God is prepared to do in us when we trust Him enough to focus on love God and love others above ourselves.

Because Paul understands how we are as humans, he says he must remind us “not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think” because of any recognition or praise we get for our actions.  God determines what gifts He gives and to whom.  If any of us begin to think our gift or the recognition by others of it makes us more spiritual or special in God’s eyes, we have missed it.  Part of placing our lives before God as an offering is accepting the call on our lives without wishing we had someone else’s or becoming inflated with pride because our gift gains recognition.  Immediately after these verses, Paul speaks about the body and how every part needs to function for the body to work efficiently.  Clog up an invisible part and the whole body suffers! 

Impact on Me

This chapter is a place I come to remind myself of the practical outpouring of love to God and others.  The last half is my challenge.  Paul lists ways to enforce that sacrifice on in my everyday life.  I don’t know that taking up that challenge would be possible without embracing the verses that precede that get the focus off me! 

If I will commit to become that living sacrifice by putting myself fully in His hands, God will gift me as He sees best, something that will bring true satisfaction and fulfillment to me.  In that surrender of all that I think I need, want or dream to be, I will receive His best because only God can truly know what will thrill my heart. “The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.”  I pray that I am done telling God how to run my life!  I am ready to listen and obey.

Prayer

Lord God, Almighty and Everlasting Father, Creator, Savior, Lover of my soul, I come to you with praise and gratitude for Who You are and What You have done for me.  All that I choose to do for You is done by You working in and through me, leaving behind the blessing and grace to mature me in the process.  Remind me always that my best will always be accomplished by faithfully walking in the footsteps You place before me, being a support to others that endeavor to do the same, and encourage those who have wandered to find the way back.  I ask this all in the name of Jesus.  Make it so.

Ephesians 2:4-10 (MSG).  Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.  7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Ephesians 2:4-10 (NASB) 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Observation

The day-to-day distractions of living and working can drift us into being self-focused, causing us to forget that we are the creation of His hands, made to do His work in the course of that day-to-day living and working.  I am grateful that salvation is a continuous process rooted in that immense grace and great love and will patiently and continually work in us while we live on this earth!  Knowing that gives us hope that, when we do fail, He is never surprised and has yet another dose of grace to help us do better the next time. Like a baby when it takes the first step and then falls down, He is excited that we took a step, then lifts us up and encourages us to take another. He tells us that we are created to fulfill His plan, His dreams, not the plans and dreams of our own making, and some of our failures arise from trying to hold Him to our expectations rather than listening to/following His instructions so that we can live up to His expectations. We the redeemed can forget in the distraction/busyness of living out our daily lives that we were saved/raised up/seated with Him in heavenly places simply because He loves us past reason and will continue to do so for all eternity regardless of our condition, our response, our faithfulness – “that He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Impact on Me

I have been reflecting on grace lately – how precious is it to me?  Do I live by and treat others according to the grace I have received, a grace that flows from our God Who is “immense in mercy and with an incredible love”?  Do I allow the generous outpouring of grace to evoke joy and celebration every day regardless of the challenges or troubles I experience?  Do I expect/allow that grace to be sufficient to every need?  Do I treasure Jesus’ sacrifice (which made this grace available to me) or allow it to become common or taken for granted?  How do I respond moment-by-moment to that immensity/richness of mercy and “great love with which He loved us” which provided salvation (redemption/healing/restoration) when I could do nothing to deserve or earn it? Is Jesus really my only hope, my primary source, my all-in-all or do my plans, my experience, my training, my rights hold more sway in how I respond?  Do I really perceive/accept that saving grace is a gift only God can give and that He chose to give it to me?  “Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish!” 

Prayer

My God and Father, Savior, giver of grace, I want to be a fountain, a waterfall, of Your mercy, peace, reconciliation, restoration, and grace, grace, grace – so that others might come to know You because they experience Your love, mercy and grace through me. Lord, may I be no hindrance to You in flowing through me to embrace others with that same grace!  Let me never forget what great salvation has been given to me simply for the sake of Your love. In Jesus’ name, I pray.